Of Sea Monsters, Bears and Sandcastles
by swagUPwindowsDOWN
Summary: When she received the polite but firm notice suggesting that she and her children should stay away from the lake in the near future, she wasn't surprised. For the BTR Plot Adoption Forum's Summer Vacation Challenge.


**Hey all,**

**This is for the BTR Plot Adoption Forum's Summer Vacation Challenge. All entries can be found here topic/153090/177048709/1/Summer-Vacation-Challenge#177431900. Basically, this was to write something with the boys going out somewhere for summer vacation. There will also be a poll going up on Monday, so please read through the entries - they're all really good - and vote for your winner.**

**Some lighthearted humour here with the boys as children doing what they do best - causing mayhem :P**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

As other families glared at them from under their parasols, Jennifer Knight wondered why she ever thought taking four seven-year-olds and a two-year-old to the beach during their summer vacation was a good idea. Granted, the only place that she had supervised them alone was in her own house, but she had figured a change of scenery would be nice for them all.

Not that they were in direct competition with each other either, of course they weren't, but Brooke had hired out the whole ice rink so that the boys could have a private session with their hockey coach, sliding a wad of hundred bills over the desk to the receptionist as nonchalantly as if she had stashes hidden at home in her bathroom cabinets (she did, by the way. You couldn't pull out a bottle of Cuda body lotion without grabbing a fistful of twenties to go along with it).

Joanna and Sylvia hadn't been as extravagant, but Kendall had come home buzzing both times that the mothers had organized their own day trips. Sylvia had whisked them off to the nearest theme park to ride the new ten loop rollercoaster that had just opened, with fast passes and the first pick of seats. Joanna had found a discovery centre, which may have sounded less entertaining, but there were acres of high rope activities and adventure climbing in the trees, mud-covered obstacle courses and canoeing lakes that meant Kendall had come home both exhausted and exhilarated.

On all three trips, the other mothers had said the boys had been good, well behaved…_wonderful_. So why when it was her turn did everything go completely haywire.

* * *

Carlos kicked his little feet excitedly, hitting the back of James' seat several times. The chestnut-haired boy turned around and glared at his friend, warning him with a look that made Carlos stop instantly.

"You'll need your floaties on first," Logan replied from the seat next to him, "the lake gets deep."

"Pffttt…" Carlos swatted a hand in the air, catching Logan in the face. "I can handle that."

"Sure, you can," Kendall commented, peering over the top of his seat alongside James' and rolling his eyes. "That must be why you haven't been to swimming lessons in three weeks."

"They never let me go under properly," the Latino whined, "you can't pretend you're a sea monster without Mr. Gale pulling you up again."

"That's because you're not meant to pull the other kids under!" Logan exclaimed.

"Just because you can do front crawl doesn't mean you're a better swimmer than me," Carlos replied.

"Does too, doggy paddler."

"Does not!"

"Does too!"

Kendall turned to James, mirth in his eyes as the two behind them started to tussle. He mimicked Carlos' flailing arms in an extremely accurate interpretation of the Latino's pool skills. Carlos stuck his tongue out at him.

"Boys calm down. Kendall turn around. It's only ten more minutes, can you please not make me crash the car?" Mama Knight called, peeking at the four through her rear-view mirror. Katie giggled along in her baby car seat. Kendall plonked down and James shuffled to face the front again, looking out the window as the mountains whizzed by, blurring together like a watercolour painting.

"Are there gonna be bugs at the lake, Mama Knight? Momma says some bugs bite and I don't want red splotches on me. That would look awful for my skin tone!"

Jennifer's eyebrows furrowed and she glanced back to see that James was indeed very serious about the matter. Being out of school for a prolonged amount of time and, ultimately, spending more time with his mother was clearly rubbing off on him. She probably should have a word with Brooke about waiting to watch _Next Top Model_ until after James had gone to bed.

"There's bugs everywhere, James. There will be some at the lake, but I have repellent, so you'll be ok."

"What about bears?" A small voice piped up. Only Logan could sound scared and intrigued at the same time.

"Bears live in the woods and mountains around here. But there's loads of people who come here so the bears stay away. Especially during the day." At least, she hoped they did.

Getting the car parked and all the boys and Katie out was relatively straight forward. Getting them to stay in one place was another matter entirely.

"Right!" she said, raising her voice to be heard over the constant chatter and excitement in front of her. "Hold hands, find your partner and hold hands!" She felt ever so much like a schoolteacher, wrangling a group of thirty screaming kids. In reality, there were only five.

It had been well proven that James and Carlos could not walk alongside each other without getting lost or running away. Several times had the two pulled left when Mama Knight was going right, and she'd spent a good fifteen minutes blindly searching for them. Instead, putting Kendall and Logan each with one nullified the chaos…at least until they got to where they wanted to be.

Picking Katie up in her arms, Jennifer lead her small group around the path down to the lake. It was bustling with families who had all had the same ingenious idea as she had, making her realise that maybe it wasn't as clever as she thought. Finding a space was like looking for that odd sock that you knew had been put in the laundry but didn't come out again.

"Here!" Kendall exclaimed, pulling Carlos to a clear spot close to the water's edge. Mama Knight briefly wondered if she should have taken account for Kendall when considering the running away situation as well.

Carlos was adamant he was going in the water. He was going in, going in, going in. Before she could even so much as lay a towel down on the beach, Carlos was shucking his t-shirt and sandals, leaving him in only his red swimming trunks before turning around and holding his arms out in demand of his floaties. Jennifer sighed as she dug around in her bag and found the aids, blowing them up in record time. James also followed Carlos into the water, whilst Logan and Kendall inspected the shells buried in the sand.

"Stay in the swim zone, boys!" Jennifer called, happy that she was very close to the water in case any of them needed help. But she knew the area she had picked was quite shallow and kid friendly. She sat down on her towel, pulling her own sandals off. Katie took particular interest in her bare feet, toddling around with a bucket and spade that she had managed to retrieve herself.

"Feet," she stated, pointing with the spade and plopping down on her swimsuit clad bottom next to Jennifer's toes. "Katie dig," she added and then Mama Knight had a bucket load of sand pouring over her.

* * *

Meanwhile, Carlos and James were having an excellent time seeing who could hold their breath the longest. The smaller boy was bright red in the face but beamed as James came up four seconds before he did.

"I win! I win!" Carlos shouted, triumphantly crossing his arms over his chest.

"At least I don't look like a tomato," James sent back.

"You're a tomato!"

"Your face is one of those tomatoes that's gone all shriveled in the bottom of the box," James retorted.

"Yeah…yeah…well can tomatoes do this?" Carlos bent down, flinging his arms through the water and sending a torrent at the taller. James sputtered for a moment before kicking out and sending a stream back. Tomatoes forgotten, soon started the greatest splash fight in all of history.

* * *

"Kendall, look!" Logan cried, kneeling in the sand beside the fort he and the blond had been building. He hastily dropped the shells he had been collecting in favour of tracing through a set of tracks that passed right by them.

"Woah," Kendall acknowledged as he came over, trampling through the west wall of the fort but not seeming to mind as he looked at the sand. "That must be a bear!"

"A bear?" Logan repeated, his brown eyes quickly checking the area around him for any threats. "Your mom said the bears stayed away!"

"Maybe this one was hungry," Kendall shrugged. He didn't really know what bear tracks looked like, but he was pretty smart and reckoned he had figured this one out well. His teacher at school often pulled him aside for being 'a little too cocky at times', whatever that meant, but his mom had always stormed into the classroom and heatedly claimed he was determined and headstrong, _not_ cocky.

"You-you think we should tell someone?" Logan whispered. If this were an emergency, then they needed to tell the adults. Like when the other three had accidentally set fire to the reading corner, he had gone and found someone straight away. He had still been punished for telling them how to make the fire though.

"Nah, we can be detectives, like those guys on tv who go around in jackets and ride motorbikes. You know, the ones that solve the crime and get the girl at the end," Kendall bopped up and down in his place, extremely keen on the idea.

"Girls have cooties," Logan said offhandedly. "Ok, so how do we find the bear? Follow the tracks?"

"Yep, but we have to be cool about it…stay three steps behind me and walk in slow motion."

* * *

"Katie bug, I'm really glad you're keeping your options of becoming a construction worker when you grow up open, but Mommy can't feel her feet," Mama Knight wriggled her toes, trying to maneuver them out of the mound of sand but Katie, ever her brightest child – and don't tell Kendall that – had thought to use wet sand to do the job.

The little girl simply patted her work, a pleased smile coming to her face at seeing her mother struggle. Mama Knight swore she saw a glint in the little girl's eyes as she moved on to her upper body.

* * *

"I'm gonna make a sandcastle," James declared, splashing out of the water to get his own bucket and spade. Carlos shrugged and sunk back underwater again. The children in front of him would be no match for the return of the sea monster.

James shook his head like he had seen their parents do so many times when one of them was being funny – ridiculous his mother called it, but James knew she meant funny – and proceeded to pile sand into the turret shaped bucket.

"Let's build a castle for Barbie. That dream house is way too old for someone as rich as her," he chattered to himself, imagining Barbie being ecstatic to design her new home and making sure there was tons of extra closet space. "Plus, I heard there's damp in the living room…I know, how on earth will it sell for the full asking price now?"

* * *

Logan bumped into Kendall as the blonde stopped abruptly, a small 'oof' making its way out of his mouth.

"Kendall!" he protested as he neared the taller's side, glancing down at what his friend had stopped for. Or rather, what wasn't there.

"The tracks aren't there anymore," Kendall stated the obvious to Logan, who could clearly see that they had met a dead end to their search.

"Maybe the bear went for a swim?" Logan guessed, purposely stepping away from the water and putting Kendall between him and the lake. He wasn't going for human sacrifice, like in that documentary his mom had been watching when Logan was supposed to be in bed, but a protective Kendall shield would do the same thing if the bear were to appear. He thanked that idea to another documentary, this time on medieval warfare, that his mother also didn't know he had seen. She really should get a child lock on the tv catch up system.

Suddenly, a loud bark sounded, and a blob of black fur came bounding up to them. Logan yelled and Kendall would later admit he only clung onto the smaller boy to _hide_ him, _not_ because he was _scared_.

"It's the bear, it's the bear!" Logan squealed, but promptly got a face full of slobber as a large tongue licked up his face. "Ewwww."

Kendall burst out laughing at Logan's expression, but quickly shut up when he got the same treatment. The dog barked at them again and zig zagged around them, liking the game they were playing. Kendall stroked down the black fur, smiling at the owner who was coming towards them with a leash.

"Well detective Logan, I think we solved the case of the bear tracks," Kendall declared in his best police officer voice, puffing his chest and sticking his chin out.

"It's been a pleasure working with you, detective Kendall," Logan replied, hands on his hips.

The two started walking away and back to where Mama Knight was sitting, leaving the dog behind. But the canine had other ideas and chased after them, clambering about in the sand. Deciding that they didn't want to get trampled, Kendall and Logan broke into a run. The dog barked happily, excited that his two new friends wanted to play his favourite game too.

* * *

Mama Knight was becoming aware of the increasing sound of children crying from where she was laying, half covered in wet sand and at the merciless hands of a conniving toddler. Katie had somehow slung half a pit full of sand onto her, judging by the massive hole in the sand next to her, and was contentedly placing brown weeds around her mother's head. She would be smelling of lake water for the rest of the month.

The crying got louder as a little girl ran up to another beachgoer a few feet away from her. She crossly pointed out towards the lake and stamped her foot as she explained to her parents what had happened. Jennifer, not able to hear the conversation, followed the pointed finger to the lake in front of her.

She couldn't see anything wrong with the scene. Just a few children playing catch in the water, another couple of girls splashing about…until one disappeared under the water with a small cry. She resurfaced immediately, but glared at something beneath the water, splashing in frustration. Another of the girls went down, came up coughing and ran out of the water presumably to find her parents as well. One by one the children in the lake went under – splish, splash, plop – until all were shouting, crying or coughing up water from their lungs. At the end of all the disaster, Carlos popped up for breath, grinning madly.

Knowing she had to put a stop to the boy's antics before someone got hurt, or worse, an angry mother came to complain, she tried desperately to wiggle out of Katie's mother trap. Her body was pinned by the sand on top and Katie smirked as she noticed Jennifer trying to escape, flopping onto her stomach and ignoring her completely.

Then, two matching hollers came down the beach. Mama Knight could only stare in horror as Kendall and Logan sprinted away from their new friend, the ball of fur hot on their heels. But, of course, they didn't go around everyone like polite little boys would have. No, instead they leapt right through families lying on beach towels, kicking up picnic food, treading on stomachs and even popping a toddler's beach ball. Said toddler started bawling at once and Mama Knight knew she saw Katie out the corner of her eye blowing raspberries at the upset child.

Kendall and Logan led the dog through several more disgruntled families until they reached James and his four story, six-bedroom, three-bathroom state of the art castle complete with moat and walk in wardrobe. Darting out of the way, Kendall and Logan were able to stop themselves crashing. The mutt, however, had no sense of spatial awareness and hurdled through his build. Sand flicked up everywhere, covering the family next to James and the brunette himself.

"My hair!" He cried, spitting out grains whilst trying unsuccessfully to pull the clumps from his hair.

Carlos came bouncing out of the water at that point, fascinated by the scene. And goodness knows where his swimming trunks had gone as he ran to his friends butt naked.

Finally escaping her prison as she clawed through the sand, Jennifer took several deep breaths. She counted to ten, then to twenty, before gathering up the towels, shoving Carlos' shirt at him and dragging Katie by the arm.

"We're going! In your partners, back to the car!" she said, just barely managing to keep her nerve as they walked past the dozens of families who now all hated her for ruining their relaxing summer's day with a bunch of four-foot hooligans.

The walk to the car was a lot speedier than the way over and she deposited Katie in her car seat, the little girl still smiling cheekily, before going over to the boys. Kendall and Logan looked sheepish whilst Carlos couldn't stop talking about how amazing their stunt had been. James, still covered in sand, stood there and cried.

She went the faster route home, determined to get back and the day over with. Her head was smiting, and she could still feel the sand in places where it shouldn't be. James wouldn't stop crying and Kendall, Carlos and Logan had started a loud game of I Spy in the back. She couldn't wait to get home, let the mothers deal with their own children and put her two to bed. A nice glass of shiraz was calling her name from the wine cooler.

* * *

When she received the polite but firm notice suggesting that she and her children should stay away from the lake in the near future, she wasn't surprised. Next time, she'd just take them to the museum.

* * *

**Please like and review, I'd love to know you reactions!**

**~swagUPwindowsDOWN :) x**


End file.
